VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Opening the Vatican summit on child protection and the clerical sexual abuse crisis, Pope Francis said, “The holy people of God are watching and are awaiting from us not simple, predictable condemnations, but concrete and effective measures” to
When the Vatican announced on Feb. 16 that Theodore McCarrick, the disgraced former cardinal-archbishop of Washington, D.C., had been dismissed from the clerical state, the only surprise was that it took so long. (See story by Brian Fraga here) The first public
As final preparations wrap up before the Feb. 21-24 summit on clergy sexual abuse in Rome, two key participants, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, president of the Center for Child Protection at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and a member of the Pontifical Commission
Two wrongs do not make a right. The revelation of sexual abuse of children by leaders in Southern Baptist congregations in no way excuses similar crimes in the Catholic Church, but the reports can provide Catholics with facts to consider. First of
This Lent, the faithful in the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, will read and reflect upon stories such as that of a 10-year-old boy from a devout Irish-Catholic family who was rewarded for doing well on a math test by being sent to
Theodore McCarrick, the disgraced former cardinal-archbishop of Washington, D.C., who is alleged to have sexually abused minors and seminarians for several decades, has been removed from the clerical state, the Holy See announced Saturday. The decision to laicize McCarrick, which had been expected
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Twisted ideas of power and authority in the Catholic Church have contributed to the clerical sexual abuse crisis, leaders of religious orders said, but sometimes the positive “sense of family” in their own communities also made them slow
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When presented with an accusation that a priest has sexually abused a child, “whether it’s criminal or malicious complicity and a code of silence or whether it is denial” on a very human level, such reactions are no
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The accusations surrounding former U.S. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick have been hanging over U.S. bishops and faith communities in the dioceses and archdioceses where he served — New York, Metuchen and Newark in New Jersey, and Washington —
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Vatican’s removal from the priesthood of Theodore E. McCarrick “is a clear signal that abuse will not be tolerated,” said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Feb. 16. “No bishop, no matter how influential,